EMI, Apple partner on DRM-free premium music — update EMI Group will soon sell digital music with better sound quality and no digital rights management restrictions through Apple's iTunes Store. — EMI's entire music catalog will be available in premium DRM-free form via iTunes in May …

EMI, Apple To Sell DRM-Free Music for $1.29/song — Update: MP3 file of the press call is here. — April 2, 2007: The day DRM died. — The surprise press conference in London today with today EMI CEO Eric Nicoli and Apple CEO Steve Jobs just started a few minutes ago (1 pm London time).

EMI will sell songs without copy protection on iTunes — Apple and EMI Music shook up the music industry Monday by announcing plans to sell more than 150,000 digital songs without copy protection. — The songs — from Coldplay, Norah Jones, and other artists on the giant EMI record label — can be freely copied.

With Sonopia, you too can be a telecom mogul — Sonopia, two-year-old Menlo Park, Ca. company launches service tomorrow that lets anyone — even you — create their own mobile carrier. — You can create your own calling plan, within limits of course, and sending your customers alerts …

Update/Joint Statement with Chris Locke — Chris Locke and I agreed to publish a statement, together (both in our own words) in advance of the story which will appear tomorrow (Monday, April 2) on CNN, at 7:20 AM (EST) on "CNN American Morning", and throughout the day on other CNN shows.

Web 2.0 is vulnerable to attack — Security researchers have found what they say is an entirely new kind of web-based attack, and it only targets the Ajax applications so beloved of the 'Web 2.0' movement. — Fortify Software, which said it discovered the new class of vulnerability and has named it …

Cold Cash From A Hot Site — Can MySpace pull in revenue fast enough for Rupert? — As numbers go, this one's a whopper. Last year MySpace users called up an average of 31.5 billion unique page views per month. That's as though everyone on the planet visited the site once a week.

Twitter: Is Brevity The Next Big Thing? — Jack Dorsey has long been obsessed with status. [I'M WRITING THE LEAD TO MY COLUMN] Not in the snob-appeal sense, but status as in "where are you and what are you doing." He became fascinated with the idea while programming software for cab and courier companies.

Oracle Linux adopters labelled 'idiots' — One of the first converts to Oracle's support for Linux has revealed the public backlash it has endured since their decision to drop Red Hat. — Melbourne company Opes Prime Stockbroking told ZDNet Australia that in the weeks following its announcement …

Topix reinvents itself as citizen journalist site — Topix is reinventing itself from a software-based news aggregator site to a citizen journalist hub where anyone can submit news and photos and sign up to be a volunteer editor selecting featured stories. — The site also has redesigned …

Raising money from VCs? Check out Venture Hacks — Venture Hacks is a new site launched by two entrepreneurs to help founders of start-ups navigate the hairy world of venture capital. — It aims to provide tips, such as how to negotiate a good deal when raising money …

About the New Orleans imagery in Google Maps and Earth — Posted by John Hanke, Director, Google Maps/Local/Earth — This weekend, there has been a lot of discussion about our imagery of New Orleans in Google Maps and Google Earth. I thought I'd give you some background that may clear things up …